THEATER

THEATER; The Witty Star of 'The Gerry Show'

By JONATHAN MANDELL

Published: January 18, 2004

WHEN the Tony Award-winning theater director Gerald Gutierrez died suddenly late last month at the unripe age of 53, the stories about him immediately began to flow. An actor's director, who understood exactly how to elicit emotionally moving performances from his casts, he had an obsession with detail that made each production tick like a perfectly calibrated clock. His back-to-back Tonys for best director in 1995 and 1996 -- for revivals of ''The Heiress'' and ''A Delicate Balance,'' respectively -- honored what the actors, playwrights and other theater people who worked with him already knew very well. His style and flair may have seemed effortless, but his research for every production -- both classic revivals and new plays -- was ferocious. Mr. Gutierrez, who apparently died of respiratory failure from the effects of the flu, was a cancer survivor who came out of the experience ''full of life,'' as the actress Cherry Jones says. He was an impatient man with enormous patience, a serious student of the theater with a wicked sense of humor, a private soul who took his Yorkshire terrier Phyllis to the 1995 Tony Awards (''It was deflective behavior,'' he said in a 1996 interview with Alex Witchel in The New York Times, ''if you look at the dog, you're not looking at the scars'' from the cancer surgery). Here are a few of the stories that Mr. Gutierrez's colleagues and friends have been telling about him. JONATHAN MANDELL

KEVIN KLINE

Actor

Gerry and I were at Juilliard together, in Group I, the first graduating class. I was in the first play he ever directed, the one-act ''The Diary of Adam and Eve,'' an adaptation of a Mark Twain story, which we did during spring break. During rehearsal, we got into an argument, I think it was over some comic business that he wanted and that I didn't want to do. To his dying day, we disagreed about what happened next. I always said I walked out of rehearsal. But he would always say that he threw me out. He last directed me in ''Ivanov'' at Lincoln Center a quarter-century later. While he trusted me more, there was no let-up in his passion or exactitude. If he thought you did something really well, he gave you a dollar. I don't remember his doing that at Juilliard; I don't think he could afford to. At the opening night of ''Ivanov,'' he gave me a framed dollar bill.

JOHN LEE BEATTY

Set Designer

I started designing sets for Gerry in 1974. I did ''A Delicate Balance,'' ''Most Happy Fella,'' ''A Life in the Theater,'' ''Dinner at Eight'' -- you name it. Deep into the technical rehearsal of ''The Heiress,'' the lighting designer Beverly Emmons was so behind in the lighting cues that our two stars, Cherry Jones and Frances Sternhagen, were left doing their climactic jilting scene completely in the dark. Gerry exploded from his seat in frustration, then ran to the back, where he wildly stared at the stage. By the time he reached me, though, something had changed. ''I know I should be furious,'' he said, ''but, John, are you thinking what I'm thinking?'' By that time Beverly called out from her desk, ''Gerry, I'll fix it, I'll fix it.'' Gerry grinned at me and yelled, ''Beverly, I have a surprise for you.'' So Cherry was to break the audience's hearts in the dark from then on, and everyone in the room was nominated for a Tony.

CHERRY JONES

Actress

During rehearsals for ''The Heiress,'' Gerry would be telling stories and making jokes. He had just come back to the stage. He had had cancer and had come through it, so he came to us full of life. It was like ''The Gerry Show.'' We all fell in love with him, and I knew something was being accomplished, but it seemed awfully chaotic at times, a little unfocused. Once we got into previews, however, he was like a laser beam. He wanted the play to go like an express locomotive. He actually sacrificed a couple of performances in previews by making us go at an absurdly accelerated rate in order to get that kind of energy and speed in our bones. Every night we would be given the times of the first act and the second act. It was imperative that we never add a minute to either act. If we went over, we would get a call from Daddy.

After the Tony Award, I had prided myself on keeping my performance very simple. Apparently, I had not succeeded. He came up to me after the show to talk about a line I said in the last act: ''Let us have some lemonade.'' He said, ''It now sounds as though you have Barbara Stanwyck with her hand on her hip in your throat.''

Actors don't really perform for the audience; they try to please their director. So it's sad when the director is no longer attending performances. But now and then I would hear a slight jingle in the back of the house, and my heart would soar. I knew it was Gerry coming in, because that was Phyllis's dog collar. I lived to hear that little jingle in the back of the house.

TOM DONAGHY

Playwright

Gerry had three great obsessions -- theater, music and the law -- and he managed to incorporate all three into rehearsals. He had studied piano and directing at Juilliard, and plays were music to him. In rehearsals, most directors tell the actors, ''Begin when you're ready.'' Gerry would say, ''Hit it!'' -- as if he were a bandleader.